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Reproduced below is the text of
a letter sent by Domicio da Gama, Brazil's American Ambassador, to the U.S.
Secretary of State,
Robert Lansing.

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In his letter dated 4 June
1917 da Gama explained that having formally severed diplomatic relations
with Germany on 10 April 1917 - some four days after
the U.S. declared war with Germany - the Brazilian government was
now actively seeking to amend Brazilian law to enable the country to itself
declare war with Germany - which it duly did on 26 October 1917.

As a major Atlantic trading nation, Brazil
had found itself increasingly threatened by Germany's
declaration of unrestricted
submarine warfare, culminating on 5 April 1917 with the sinking
of the Brazilian ship Parana off the French coast.

Click here
to read Brazil's justification to the Vatican for its decision to go to war.

Letter from Domicio da Gama,
Brazilian Ambassador to the United States, to Robert Lansing, U.S. Secretary of
State, 4 June 1917

Mr. Secretary of State:

The President of the republic
has just instructed me to inform your Excellency's Government that he has
approved the law which revokes Brazil's neutrality in the war between the United
States of America and the German Empire.

The republic thus recognized
the fact that one of the belligerents is a constituent portion of the American
Continent and that we are bound to that belligerent by traditional friendship
and the same sentiment in the defence of the vital interests of America and the
accepted principles of law.

Brazil ever was and is now free
from warlike ambitions, and, while it always refrained from showing any
partiality in the European conflict, it could no longer stand unconcerned when
the struggle involved the United States, actuated by no interest whatever but
solely for the sake of international judicial order, and when Germany included
us and the other neutral powers in the most violent acts of war.

While the comparative lack of
reciprocity on the part of the American republics divested until now the Monroe
Doctrine of its true character, by permitting of an interpretation based on the
prerogatives of their sovereignty, the present events which brought Brazil even
now to the side of the United States at a critical moment in the history of the
world are still imparting to our foreign policy a practical shape of continental
solidarity, a policy, however, that was also that of the former regime whenever
any of the other sister friendly nations of the American Continent was
concerned.

The republic strictly observed
our political and diplomatic traditions and remained true to the liberal
principles in which the nation was nurtured.

Thus understanding our duty and
Brazil taking the position to which its antecedents and the conscience of a free
people pointed, whatever fate the morrow may have in store for us, we shall
conserve the Constitution which governs us and which has not yet been surpassed
in the guarantees due to the rights, lives, and property of foreigners.

In bringing the above-stated
resolution to your Excellency's knowledge, I beg you to be pleased to convey to
your Government the sentiments of unalterable friendship of the Brazilian people
and Government.